A Little Present
by JanSuch
Summary: Nikola Tesla is going off and doing something in secret every day. Just exactly what is he up to?


I don't own Sanctuary or the Sanctuary characters and I'm making no profit from this.

I've been thinking about Irish-Coffee's story of the 67 presents. Here's one that doesn't fit in a box.

Every day at 4:45 pm, Nikola Tesla took off his lab coat, washed his hands, put on his suit jacket, and left the lab. Henry hardly noticed the first couple of days, but by the third he started to realize there was a pattern developing.

The HAP didn't say anything. It really wasn't any of his business, right? But every day that the vampire walked out of the lab at the same time, he became more and more curious. Henry usually quit for the day at 5:00, unless he was working on a hot project. He knew Tesla often worked in the lab in the evening and sometimes far into the night, and he began to wonder how long the inventor was gone every day.

So he hung around fiddling with something one day, just to see. As usual, Nikola left the lab at 4:45, and Henry just waited. He thought it might be a long time before the vampire returned and resolved not to stay more than an hour, but he didn't have to. At 5:30 Tesla was back, taking off his jacket, putting on his lab coat, and going back to work without a word of explanation.

Henry finished what he was doing and left. He and Erica usually dined at 6:00, and he didn't want to be late. Was that what Tesla was doing for his forty-five minutes, eating? Maybe, but he doubted it. The vampire didn't seem any different when he came back, didn't smell of wine or seem to have more color in his normally pale complexion. And regular meals weren't his thing.

The next day, Henry asked Nikola straight out where he went every day, and was told it was none of his business. He went to his laptop and pulled up the security footage from the halls. It wasn't hard to find an image of Nikola leaving the lab and walking down the hall, but when the vampire reached the corner, the next camera didn't show him coming around it. Henry typed frantically, trying to figure out what happened. Then he realized the time stamp wasn't running; the electrically adept vampire had frozen the image. The security images were only kept for a week and then automatically erased. Henry tried all the available days with the same result.

He decided to follow Tesla and see where he went. When Nikola walked out, Henry put down his tools and followed. But he'd been a little too fast; Tesla was still walking down the same hall ahead of him, and hearing Henry come out of the lab, the vampire stopped and looked back.

Henry pretended he was going somewhere down the hallway and just walked past Tesla with a nod. Tesla stood and watched him until he turned a corner. Henry wandered around the halls a little, hoping to run across the vampire again, but wherever Tesla had gone he was no longer in the hallways.

By this time Henry was dying of curiosity, and determined to find out what Tesla was doing; obviously something he didn't want anyone else to know about or he wouldn't be freezing the cameras so he couldn't be tracked. That could mean anything, and with Tesla, "anything" really was anything. Was he making zombie vampires again, sucking power out of an alternate universe, twisting time in some fiendish way, stealing wine?

Now Henry was more worried than curious. He enlisted Will's help. At 4:45 the next day, Will just happened to be loitering in the hall around the corner where the security cameras always lost Tesla. When Nikola came around the corner, he stopped. Henry was hurrying quietly after him and nearly bumped into him.

The vampire put one hand on his hip and waggled his other forefinger at them. "Boys, you are playing out of your league. Where I go and what I do is none of your business."

Will replied, "Yeah, well, what about Magnus? This is her Sanctuary, she has the right to know what you're doing."

"And when the time comes, she will. Meanwhile, if either of you say a word about this or try to follow me again, there will be unpleasant consequences."

Will and Henry exchanged glances. Henry asked with a frown, "What kind of consequences?"

"All kinds. Remember, master of electricity, magnetism, science, computers, and pretty much everything you use daily in your pitiful little lives. Your computers and phones will go crazy, the lights will stay on all night, your food will always be burned, and when Abby and Erica are around there will be all sorts of porn on your screens and attached to your outgoing E-Mails. Fascinating Abnormals will be sighted in swamps, deserts, and central Antarctica and _guess_ who will get to go on really miserable, hopeless collection missions? Need I continue?"

Henry and Will exchanged another doubtful look. Should they believe these wild threats? Maybe he was just bluffing.

Nikola turned to Will and said mildly, "I can double your paperwork by tomorrow, triple it, maybe even quadruple it by the end of the week."

Now Will looked really alarmed. "Ahh, I'd rather you didn't."

"And you, White Fang," Tesla said to Henry. "You are _so_ far from solving your little problem in the lab. Would you like a hint or would you prefer to flounder for the next ten years?"

"I can figure it out myself, without your help." Henry looked at Will and said "I can, really."

"What about all the rest of it?" Will asked.

"You think he'd actually go through with any of that?"

"Children, time's up. You want to take me on or just give me some privacy?"

Henry crossed his arms and shook his head. Will surrendered. "Okay, look. Just promise us you're not going to blow up the building, try to take over the world, or do anything else that Magnus is really going to hate."

"You have my solemn oath, Huggybear. Now get lost, both of you."

Henry and Will exchanged shrugs and walked away. Whatever he was doing, it would come to light eventually.

Tesla continued his daily forty-five minute disappearing act for several months, and then it ceased as suddenly as it had begun.

Henry and Will waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Days went by, and then weeks.

One day, Helen was feeling very down. It had been a tough week. She had accidentally dropped her favorite teacup and it had shattered, a nubbin baby had been born dead, they'd gotten word that SCIU had captured an entire family of Abnormals, and just that morning she'd gotten word that an old friend had died.

Nikola held out his hand to her and said, "Come with me, I have something to show you."

"Can't you just tell me?" she asked, expecting he was going to show her some other problem.

"Uh-uh. You need cheering up. Trust me."

Nikola was her oldest friend, but she didn't quite trust him unilaterally. But she took his hand and as he led her out of the door she asked, "Where are we going?"

"Just down to the basement."

"Why, do we have a plumbing leak?"

"No, just come."

He led her past his lab, down the hall, around the corner, to one of a myriad of doors in the labyrinth of the Sanctuary basement. Nikola opened the door and flicked on the lights.

The room was filled with dominoes, set up in lines running not just across the floor, but up ramps and across the walls as well. There were slides and swings and crazy looking contraptions all over.

Helen stared in wonder. "There must be thousands of them. How long did this take you?"

"Sixty-nine point four hours. Start here." He pointed at a domino on a shoulder-high shelf next to her."

"Nikola, really, I'm not in the mood."

"Just flick it gently."

Helen gave in. It was easier to go along with him than start an argument over something so trivial. She flicked the domino.

The line of dominoes started running, splitting, going in multiple directions. Dominoes didn't just fall over, they jumped, swung, and fell, each time starting other lines. Helen started smiling, just a little bit.

Then one domino fell a long way, hit a lever that propelled another across the room. She found herself holding her breath, and grinning and clapping when it made a seemingly impossible connection.

By the time the lines were almost finished, Helen was laughing out loud. Nikola moved her forward a few inches and a little to her left, then took her hand and held it out, palm up. The last domino arced through the air to land precisely in her hand.

Helen closed her hand on it, and turned and hugged him. She released her vampire friend, and said, "Thank you, Nikola. I really needed that, today of all days. But what are you going to do with all these dominoes? Set them up again?"

"Good god, no. The gift was the surprise, the suspense, the mathematical precision, the excitement that the tricks might not work, and the joy when they did. A second time would be anticlimactic. No, I'll just leave the door open and let the children play in here."

Helen shook her head. "It was wonderful, but you're wrong. The gift is knowing you care so much about me that you spent days creating this, just so one day you could give me a little happiness. You aren't like anyone else in the world, Nikola, and I'm glad you're my friend."


End file.
